History of the Triad Praxis
History of the Triad Praxis Part I: Origins While the history of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem are fairly well documented in the mortal world, the secret history of the supernaturals in the region is clouded in mystery, misinformation and outright unknowns. The Lancea Sanctum claims that Archbishop Hieronymus Bachman was the first vampire to come to the region sometime in the 1760s with the Moravian settlers in Salem. Gangrel oral history, however, suggests that there was an unnamed American Indian Gangrel who fought against another unidentified vampire’s European followers in the area of what would become High Point some twenty years earlier. Among the werewolves of the Triad, there is the legend of the Keeper of Gates: that a werewolf from each generation was selected by the spirit of Fox to guard the heavily forested region around what would become Greensboro for millennia before the arrival of white settlers. Some Acolytes of the Circle of the Crone claim that they have been in the region since time immemorial and one of their members was actually this “spirit Fox” that directed the werewolves to protect their territory. Werewolf and Acolyte legend both also whisper of a something translatable as “The Dread Guardian” lurking in the woods somewhere within what would become known as the Triad. Regardless of what supernatural was first to arrive in the Triad, its early history is dominated by the Lancea Sanctum under the rulership of Archbishop Bachman in Salem and the Bishop Geäder of High Point. Sanctified records indicate that a Bishop Platz was established as the ruler of Greensborough soon after its foundation in the early 1800s, Nathanael of the Invictus claims to have ruled the city since ground was first broken there. Nothing is known of what happened to the Bishop Platz, assuming he wasn’t written into history some time later by a Sanctified scholar. There was certainly no love lost between Prince Nathanael and the Archbishop Bachman, though it isn’t believed there was any open conflict between the two potentates until sometime prior to the Civil War, when Nathanael backed the installation of Invictus Prince William Barrow in Winston. The Lords and the Sanctified became mortal enemies as a secret war raged in the back woods of North Carolina, often with the local werewolves caught in the crossfire. By the outbreak of the Civil War, the Archbishop Bachman had met his Final Death and Bishop Geäder of High Point agreed to the Treaty of Kerners Crossroads, which established Winston and Salem as a unified Praxis under Prince Barrow. As a result of the Treaty, the Lancea Sanctum and the Invictus in the Triad became unsteady allies, at least until the usurpation of High Point by Nathanael’s childe in the early twentieth century. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw the domination of the Invictus spread across the Triad. With the Sanctified Kindred properly cowed, the Invictus encouraged the rapid growth of industry and banking in the Triad, with tobacco becoming king in Winston and the textile industry dominating Greensborough (which would be Greensboro by the turn of the century). Sometime late in the nineteenth century, the Ordo Dracul came to the Triad, simultaneously spurring on the growth of education in the area and sparking a war between Kindred and the savage werewolves of the deep forests. Part II: War of the Gates Before Morhauptin and his followers arrived in Greensboro in the late 19th century, there was a tacit peace between the urban Kindred and the werewolves who hunted the wilds between the cities. Unfortunately, that peace wasn’t to last. Werewolf legends suggest that Morhauptin and the other members of the Ordo Dracul attacked the guardians of a sacred place, slaughtering the werewolves they found there. The Ordo Dracul claim that the werewolves drew first blood, murdering Morhauptin’s favored childe for accidentally trespassing in some obscure, unmarked territory they claimed as their own. Regardless of the reason, the supernaturals of Greensboro and, eventually, High Point and Winston, found themselves embroiled in a bloody shadow war. Surprisingly, the werewolves held their own for much of the first decade of the twentieth century, but eventually fighting against unaging foes that could replenish their numbers with a bite wore on the local werewolf population. The Ventrue of Winston-Salem, Prince Barrow’s childer in particular, gained a particular reputation for bloody attacks on the werewolves and their mundane allies. It seemed that the various werewolf packs in the region were on the brink of extinction when they gained an unexpected ally. One night late in the summer of 1907, Prince Nathanael called for a meeting of the Winston and Salem Ventrue, including members of Invictus, Lancea Sanctum and the Ordo Dracul. Prince Barrow was in attendance as well. Nathanael and the Greensboro Ventrue never arrived at that meeting. The remaining werewolves in the region came out of the darkness, bolted the doors to the building they were meeting in and burned it to the ground, the Ventrue within screaming and tearing each other apart as they burned. The following evening, Nathanael and the local werewolf packs began negotiating what would become the Treaty of Starmount, where in the Ordo Dracul were prohibited from trespassing on certain rural holy sites and Morhauptin himself was made “Keeper of Gates” by the werewolves. There was never an ‘official’ word from the Prince of Greensboro as to why he chose to betray his fellow Lord in Winston and Salem, nor precisely what the Ordo Dracul and werewolves were fighting over in the first place. A Ventrue known simply as “Mister Will” became Prince of Winston and Salem, presumably at Nathanael’s command, and began to rebuild the Clan and Invictus Covenants in the cities. Part III: The Domination of Invictus Throughout the War of Gates, Bishop Geäder attempted to remain neutral, which lead to an influx of members of the Carthian Movement into High Point. Though the Lancea Sanctum and the Carthians were initially friendly, periodic edicts from the Bishop got under the skin of many of the more anarchistic Carthians and trouble was soon brewing. By the early twenties, the conflict seemed to have reached a boiling point and a message from the Bishop to Prince Nathanael for support was intercepted by the Carthians, who immediately flew into a righteous rage. Within a month, the Bishop Geäder had met his final death at the hands of his Carthian enemies. In response, Nathanael himself led Kindred from Greensboro into High Point, destroying the Carthians they could find. By the time the dust settled, Nathanael had placed his own childe, Cooke, as Prince of High Point, despite objections from both the Sanctified and the remaining Carthians. With most of the Kindred focused on the conflicts in High Point, few Kindred noticed when Mister Will, the Prince of Winston-Salem, was slain by a family of mortal hunters in December of 1929. The mortal family was later slain (the father of the family was driven to brutally murder his kin) and Mister Will was succeeded by his childe, Prince Roan. Conflict between the new Invictus Prince of High Point and the Carthian Movement continued for decades until, finally, the then-Prefect Hugh of the Carthians agreed to the Treaty of Eastchester in the summer of 1945. The Carthians agreed to acknowledge the rulership of Invictus in all three Triad cities as long as the Carthians’ mortal allies were left unmolested by Kindred or their subjects to seek progressive political change. The vote among Carthians was extremely narrow, but the measure passed and peace again settled throughout the Triad… albeit one designed and defended by the Invictus Ventrue, with Nathanael as its undisputed leader. Part IV: The Turmoil of the Sixties Through the middle of the twentieth century, the Triad remained relatively peaceful for the supernaturals of the region. The Invictus concentrated on growing local industry and banking while the Lancea Sanctum seemed satisfied to act as advisors to the Lords and patrons of the region’s history. The Ordo Dracul focused primarily on the promotion of universities and colleges in the area while the Carthians remained heavily involved in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. The Circle of the Crone, never a strong power in the Triad, became more and more reclusive under the increasing boldness of their enemies among the Lancea Sanctum. Some Carthians would point out that the Lords cannot stomach peace for long and the Invictus Princes of the Triad slowly began to prove them correct. Though subtle at first, it slowly became apparent that Prince Cooke was growing tired of his sire’s influence in High Point and Prince Roan had no intention of recognizing Nathanael as ‘First Among Equals’ in the Triad. Another war seemed inevitable as each city became more and more isolationist from one another, slowly moving their mortal allies against one another. Throughout the twentieth century, two companies seemed immune to the manipulations of the supernaturals of the region: Jefferson Standard Insurance and Pilot Life Insurance. Even the seemingly unflappable Prince Nathanael seemed unable to infiltrate or control the growing power of these two insurance companies, whose holdings included television and radio operations across the country. Needless to say, the supernaturals of the Triad were beyond surprised when each Prince and Priscus received personal invitations by the newly unified Jefferson-Pilot corporation to visit their vast corporate retreat near Jamestown for a week of evenings early in 1968. It was there that the supernaturals met their host, a being who called himself Mister Parisi. Parisi was intensely accommodating to their needs, but made it clear that another war between supernaturals would not be welcome. To everyone’s surprise, Prince Roan and Prince Cooke agreed and pressured Prince Nathanael to agree to the Treaty of Jamestown, wherein each praxis was required to expressly respect the sovereignty of one another. A minor footnote in the Treaty also made Mister Parisi the Master of Elysium for the Triad, a position that was reaffirmed by the Princes every five years for the next three decades. The territory surrounding Jamestown itself was made a Domain under the control of Parisi himself, where other supernaturals could enter only at Parisi’s invitation… all three Princes were bound by the Treaty to provide support in hunting and slaying anyone who violated the sovereignty of this new Domain. The Treaty of Jamestown was destined to last no more than a year... and it was shattered in a single day of violence. Part V: The Greensboro Massacre The Treaty of Jamestown held over a decade, though as the Seventies came to a close, tensions were mounting in the Triad, both between the three Praxises and between the Covenants. Despite holding power over the Three Praxises, the Invictus were showing signs of infighting by the end of the Seventies. Prince Roan had proven himself an able administrator in Winston-Salem, but many of his own subjects were showing signs of defiance. Prince Cooke in High Point was proving to be something of an embarrassment to his prestigious sire, with the Cartians there often blatantly flouting his rule, despite his continued concessions to the Movement. Though Prince Nathanael in Greensboro seemed an unimpeachable edifice and a part of the city itself, his relationship with the other Covenants in the Praxis was waning. Under the leadership of Prefect Ezra Dane and the Gangel Priscus Catherine Hugh of High Point, the Carthians had become heavily invested in the Civil Rights Movement and the growing Communist Worker’s Party by the end of the decade. This placed them squarely in opposition to the business interests of the Invictus as well as in contention with the Sanctified, whose mortal power base heavily relied on white protestant churches in the region that were often central supporters of the White Supremacist movement. The Lancea Sanctum was divided between three Bishops: Sabine and Forrester in Greensboro and Hoffman in Winston-Salem. Their long-standing disagreement over which of them should become Archbishop of the Triad was eating the Covenant from within. Despite the sharp divide between the three, the Sanctified were making major inroads in expanding their sphere of influence into the numerous colleges and universities in the Triad, much to the chagrin of the Ordo Dracul. For their part, the Ordo Dracul were likely the most stable of the Covenants at the close of the Seventies, still under the firm guidance of Morhauptin. Despite having lost influence in the education industry to the Lancea Sanctum, their conflict with the Sanctified was more a game of chess between intellectuals than an impassioned shadow war. The Circle of the Crone was the smallest of the Covenants at the end of the Seventies, though it was rumored that its enigmatic Heirophant, Lilura, was one of the most powerful Kindred in the Triad. For the most part, the Acolytes worked to keep themselves out of city politics and focus on their own esoteric occult interests in the region. On November 3rd, 1979, the eleven-year peace that Parisi had constructed was suddenly shattered when fighting broke out between White Supremacists and members of the Communist Worker’s Party planning a protest in East Greensboro, leaving five protesters dead. The Carthians were incensed, accusing the Lancea Sanctum of sending mortal thralls to attack their interests in violation of the Treaty of Jamestown and the Invictus for ensuring there wasn’t adequate police protection in the area. The mortals themselves took to the streets of Greensboro, as riots broke out across the city. Mister Parisi arranged for an emergency Conclave at the Jefferson Pilot campus in Jamestown where all of the cities and Covenants in the Triad came together, ostensibly to try to salvage the fragile peace. Instead, the Kindred of the Triad fell into political backbiting and maneuvering. Prince Nathanael’s werewolf Sheriff, Michael Corbett, sparked a war with rural werewolves while investigating White Supremacists south of Greensboro. Prince Roan of Winston-Salem took advantage of Nathanael’s temporary weakness to his advantage and began to court Greensboro’s Kindred to his banner. Meanwhile, Greensboro burned. Race riots threatened to spread across the triad. Confused reports at the time included wild dog attacks in the streets, a gasoline-filled road tanker exploded in downtown Greensboro and a twenty-car pileup clogged I-40 through Greensboro. Finally, the NC National Guard was called in to put down the riots and bring order to the Triad. When the dust had settled and the fires burned out, the political situation among the Kindred of the Triad had changed dramatically. Roan had convinced all but the five Invictus Kindred of Greensboro to relocate to Winston-Salem. After losing a strange duel to Sheriff Corbett in the bowels of the Jefferson-Pilot campus, Prince Cooke disappeared, leaving a power vacuum in High Point that the Carthians weren’t eager to see filled by another Invictus. A week later, Sheriff Corbett himself was slain, presumably by the rural werewolves he had sparked a war with during the investigation. Mister Parisi invoked the tattered remains of the Treaty of Jamestown and invoked his right to Domain in Jamestown, warning all Kindred and Werewolves against entering his territory. The tensions created, enemies made and ramifications of this singular event would affect those existing in the shadows of the Triad for decades. Part VI: The Triad Cold War As the Eighties arrived, the political landscape of the shadowy Triad was in turmoil. An influx of Kindred abandoning Greensboro resulted in a severely overpopulated Winston-Salem Praxis. The Acolytes, once strong in Winston-Salem, moved to the recently unaligned city of High Point and threw their support behind the Carthian Movement there. Prince Nathanael, despite his embarrassing political defeat at the hands of Roan, took the opportunity to consolidate his authority in Greensboro among the remaining Invictus there. While Winston-Salem’s mortal population struggled through the Eighties, Greensboro thrived and grew. High Point did surprisingly well, perhaps because the Carthians saw themselves more as caretakers than authoritarian manipulators and steadfastly refused to form any substantive governing body in the city. Throughout the Eighties, Prince Nathanael re-established his web of mortal influence across the Triad, often coming into conflict with Prince Roan’s pawns in Winston-Salem and the mortal allies of the Carthians in High Point. The hatred between Nathanael and Roan was almost palpable as each participated in petty attacks more aimed at games of one-upmanship than making actual inroads into each other’s territories. Prince Roan himself began to become more and more paranoid, particularly of those Kindred who had abandoned Greensboro at the end of the last decade… more than a few met their Final Death based on little more than Roan’s suspicions that they were still loyal to Nathanael. Antagonism between the Lancea Sanctum of Winston-Salem and the Circle of the Crone in High Point increased during this time, with periodic clashes between their mortal agents leading to an increase in the murder rates of both cities. The Ordo Dracul under Morhauptin remained more or less neutral in the conflict, slowly regaining their influence from the Sanctified over colleges and universities in the region and even striking a deal with Mister Parisi to extend their influence into Guildford Technical Community College in Jamestown. As the Eighties drew to a close, the shadows of the Triad were a powderkeg waiting for a spark. That spark was lit by one unfortunate mortal. Part VII: The Crusade of Blood In the summer of 1988, Prince Roan of Winston-Salem was attacked and put into torpor by a mortal hunter from Winston-Salem. Though the hunter was subsequently driven mad and arrested by mortal authorities for a shooting spree in southern Winston-Salem, leadership of Winston-Salem temporarily fell to the Seneschal, Rosalind Hartmann. Hartmann was not Invctus… she was Sanctified. While the Invictus of Winston-Salem tried to find a way to revive the torprous Prince, Bishop Hoffman and the Seneschal conspired to drive their enemies among the Acolytes out of the Triad permanently. Despite the mortal hunter’s youth and inexperience, he was well connected in Hunter circles and other hunters from across the east coast descended on the Triad to seek out the vampire he had injured and put it down permanently. Instead of locating Prince Roan, the gangs of hunters ended up descending upon High Point, locating and destroying several key temples of the Acolytes there. In one raid in late autumn, they apparently got lucky… a young Gangrel Acolyte named Xander Brun, who had orchestrated the alliance between the Carthians and the Circle of the Crone early in the decade, met his final death at the hands of the hunters. Satisfied with their work, most of the hunters departed back to their normal hunting grounds. The Circle, however, was able to capture and interrogate a few of the hunters and discovered, or so they claimed, that Hoffman had manipulated them into attacking the Acolytes. The Heirophant Lilura declared war on Hoffman, who was promptly named Archbishop of the Triad and reciprocated that call to war against the Acolytes. The Invictus of Winston-Salem unofficially backed the Lancea Sanctum while the Carthians stood with the Circle of the Crone in High Point. Nathanael and the Kindred of Greensboro remained steadfastly neutral, though most believe he was secretly supporting and encouraging both sides to bloodshed. Many members of Clan Nosferatu also refused to engage in the conflict, as their Priscus, Gabrielle, was an Acolyte. The Crusade of Blood had begun. By the Spring of 1989, several younger Sanctified had met their Final Death while Lilura and Gabrielle continued to elude Sanctified attempts to locate them. Finally, however, the Sanctified of Winston-Salem cornered and captured the Nosferatu Priscus, Gabrielle. Rumors suggest the Sanctified dragged the staked Nosferatu to the roof of the Reynolds Building, nailed her to a cross, unstaked her and left her screaming her rage at the sunrise as she burned. With Heirophant Lilura the last known member of the Circle of the Crone in the Triad, Sanctified victory seemed assured. Lilura herself disappeared and even her Carthian allies began to assume she had fled the Triad in defeat. They were very wrong. Storms raged across the Eastern Seaboard of the United States on May 5th, 1989 and the residents of Winston-Salem expected little more than heavy rains and a little wind. Few expected several F2 and F3 tornadoes to touch down, ripping through the heart of Winston-Salem. The largest tornado, an immense F4, tore through the traditional Sanctified stronghold of Old Salem and into downtown Winston-Salem. The Sanctified Mekhet Priscus Bishop Sabine was literally staked by a thousand shards of flying wood before being ripped to shreds in the tornado. It then bore down on Seneschal Rosalinde Hartmann, who was last seen as the tornado lifted her into the sky screaming… no sign of her was ever found. Despite the tremendous damage Winston-Salem sustained, not a single mortal was killed in the storms… it seemed to many as if the tornados were directed specifically against the Sanctified of Winston-Salem by the primal rage of nature itself. Still, the vengeance of the Crone missed its primary target… Archbishop Hoffmann spent the rest of the summer consolidating his loyalists in Winston-Salem. He cajoled the lackluster Invictus of the city into providing more direct support for his Crusade and even pushed some of the Dragons into the conflict, despite Kogaion Morhauptin’s protestations. By the end of the summer of ’89, it seemed the Archbishop was again on the cusp of rushing High Point and ending the Crusade once and for all. Of course, Lilura was still in hiding, so the Crusade’s main target had become the Carthians. The Archbishop’s plans, however, would again be disrupted by the raw rage of Mother Nature. On September 21st, Hurricane Hugo tore through the Triad. While the Hurricane was mild in comparison to the damage the tornados had inflicted on Winston-Salem four months prior, the storms served as a cover for a pre-emptive attack by the Carthians of High Point, with Lilura fighting aside Myrmidon Levi Fromm, Gangrel Priscus Catherine Hugh and the former Sheriff of Winston-Salem, Joseph Cartwright, as the Carthians infiltrated Winston-Salem and hunted what Sanctified they could find. As the Hurricane raged in the skies, chaos erupted in Winston-Salem as Sanctified and their Invicus allies fought against the Carthians and the Heirophant. Much later, rumors began to surface that the Invictus Hound of Greensboro, Bacho Morales, was seen in Winston-Salem attacking Sanctified aside Prince Nathanael’s werewolf Sheriff, Huff. By sunrise, the High Point Kindred had withdrawn back to their havens (without Cartwright, who met his Final Death in the conflict), but the victory was theirs… among the Sanctified martyred that evening, the shredded robes of Archbishop Hoffman were found in his haven at Saint Leo the Great Church. Rumor persists to this day that the claw marks on the Archbishop’s robes were made not by a Gangrel’s claws, but those of several werewolves. By the dawn of the 90s, Prince Roan had been successfully woken from torpor and he reassumed the Winston-Salem Praxis. The Crusade of Blood was effectively over, with the one remaining Sanctified Bishop, Forrester, unwilling (and unable) to push Roan to continue the war. The Carthians of High Point, for their part, were more than willing to continue to hunt down Sanctified in Winston-Salem, but cooler heads prevailed and the Carthian Prefect, Elizabeth Dane, convinced his brethren that continued conflict would only further threaten the growing prosperity of High Point as well as their friendship with the Ordo Dracul, who had established an unassailable control over High Point College (which would become High Point University a year later). Many Kindred thought the 90s were going to be a new age of prosperity and, perhaps, even peace in the Triad. But old hatreds and manipulations weren’t easily forgotten among the Kindred of the Triad and the Twentieth Century would close with the dawn of the most bloody shadow war the Triad had even seen. Part VIII: Prelude to War The early Nineties were a time of hope for many in the Triad. Infrastructure improvements in Winston-Salem improved traffic and brought growth to western Winston-Salem, particularly the Invictus-controlled Haynes area, though downtown continued to struggle. Greensboro was growing by leaps and bounds. In the still-leaderless High Point, the Dragon’s support of High Point College lead to its expansion into High Point University and Carthian efforts with the newly renamed International Home Furnishings Market was continuing to draw international attention to the growing city. Greensboro saw a great deal of expansion north and west of the city as suburbs grew and were consumed by urban sprawl. The Kindred of the three cities turned inward, isolating themselves from one another, with only a few minor conflicts between individuals erupting here and there. Despite the seeming calm, the manipulations of the Kindred of the Triad continued to prey on the hopes and dreams of the mortal population. The mysterious Varcolac, ostensibly a member of the Invictus, gained something of a stranglehold over organized crime in Winston-Salem with the rise of the Albanian mob in southern Winston-Salem. They often came into conflict with the various criminal biker gangs in the Triad, who were often backed by the Carthians of High Point and a few Carthians who had gained residence in eastern Greensboro. Regardless of the gains of the early Nineties, the Triad was still on something of a delicate precipice when the textiles and manufacturing industry slowly started to fall apart across the region. Though many mortals blamed Federal politics, particularly NAFTA and expensive Federal law suits against Lorillard in Greensboro and R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem (which seemed to culminate in the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement), for the departure of industry from the Triad, many in the shadows suspected one of their own. The loss of industry in the Triad primarily affected the mortal allies of the Carthians while many among the Invictus, particularly the Greensboro Invictus, became wealthy by moving their manufacturing operations overseas. Oak Hollow Mall in High Point is perhaps the most glaring example of the failures of the Carthians to create their utopia. Finished in 1995, just as several major furniture manufacturers were closing down their factories, Oak Hollow Mall was intended to be an economic hub of the Triad, competing directly with Invictus-controlled Haynes Mall in Winston-Salem and Four Seasons Town Centre in Greensboro. Unfortunately, even at its opening some shops remained empty and as the Ninties wore on, more and more stores departed the Mall. By the end of the Nineties, the new mall had become a hollow shell, with a few small, local stores trying to eek out a profit and biker gangs roaming the nearly-empty halls getting into fights with local youth. Oak Hollow Mall was seen as the failure of moderate Prefect Elizabeth Dane, who had spent much political capital to get the Mall finished and even made bargains with the Dragons of High Point and a few Sanctified. In the dangerous political climate of the Carthians in the late nineties, few were surprised when she was voted out of office and replaced with her long-time rival, the reactionary Sebastiaan vanBraam. vanBraam immediately began rousing the Carthians against those he suspected of having attacked the Carthians mortal interests, particularly Prince Roan of Winston-Salem and Prince Nathanael of Greensboro. Lilura again allied with the Carthians, working as something of an advisor (and, it is rumored, something of an enforcer) to vanBraam. With so many working-class men newly unemployed, the Carthian’s biker gangs grew and began pushing out the small-time criminals and gangs in the rest of the Triad, often coming into conflict with some of the Invictus’ own mortal pawns. In the summer of 2000, Mister Parisi invited the Kindred of the Triad to the Grand Elysium in Jamestown for a Conclave to work out a new Treaty. Unfortunately, during the fourth night of talks, chaos suddenly erupted among the Kindred in attendance. Reports of what happened that summer evening are murky at best, but rumors claim the werewolf Sheriff Huff and his pack attacked a Dragon neonate and childe of Morhauptin himself; Lilura was ambushed by Sanctified agents as she arrived, barely escaping with her Requiem intact; Anthony Ponte, the Invicta Daeva Priscus, attacked his own Prince Roan, attempting to depose him and his ally, Bishop Forrester; and Snatch, an unaligned Nosferatu information-gatherer was slain by the Greensboro Hound, Bacho Morales. Regardless of what started the conflict and breach of the Triad’s Grand Elysium, by the end of the night the shadows of the Triad were alight with running battles, a portion of the Jefferson-Pilot campus itself catching fire. The Great War of the Triad had begun. And few were certain of just who their allies were. Part IX: The War of the Triad At the onset of the War of the Triad, factions arose around the seven most powerful Kindred in the region, with even some Covenants divided as to who they supported. The Hierophant Lilura’s legendary rage was again incited against the Sanctified and their Invictus allies. Unfortunately, as the one remaining public Acolyte in the Triad, she had little direct support. She was able to convince Elizabeth Dane, former Carthian Prefect, and a small coterie of Carthians to support her in guerilla attacks on Winston-Salem, but the Carthians themselves remained tepid allies at best as they saw greater threats in the Triad. The Carthian Prefect Sebastiaan van Braam saw a more immediate threat among the Invictus of Greensboro under Prince Nathanael and tried to corral the Kindred of his Covenant into focusing on making gains in southern Greensboro. They key to their success, as van Braam saw it, was the sudden divide between Nathanael and Kogaion Morhauptin. Without his allies among the Ordo Dracul, van Braam believed the hated puppet master was finally vulnerable. The Ordo Dracul were surprised by the unexpected attack on one of their own by Prince Nathanael’s own Hound. It is said that Morhauptin attempted to find some means of salvaging his aged alliance with Nathanael early on, but Nathanael’s werewolf Sheriff, Huff, intercepted Morhauptin en route to downtown Greensboro and almost succeeded in destroying him. Morhauptin understood the message… the following night he met with the Carthian Prefect and threw his support behind the dethroning of Prince Nathanael (and, in particular, the destruction of his werewolf allies). Anthony Ponte, the Invictus Priscus of the Daeva, pulled many Daeva under his banner, declared himself Prince of Winston and Salem and place an increasing million-dollar bounty on Prince Roan’s head. Randolph Waller, the Dragon Guardian and a Daeva himself, joined under Ponte’s banner and tried to bring the rest of the Dragons of the Triad with him, but Morhauptin’s focus on Greensboro divided the Covenant and watered down Dragon support for Ponte. Ponte and Nathanael briefly allied against Roan several times throughout the decade, though the alliance never truly held. Bishop Forrester initially supported Prince Roan’s camp in Winston-Salem, honoring his long-time ally, but as the decade wore on it became apparent that Roan was focused more on fighting against the two fronts of Ponte and Nathanael, more focused on bringing the Invictus under his control than focusing on what Forrester considered the true threat: Lilura and her Carthian allies. By 2004, Forrester declared the conflict between Roan, Ponte and Nathanael to be an internal matter for the Invictus and withdrew his support for any of the three Invictus leaders so that he could try to focus his own Covenant against Lilura. Prince Roan of Winston and Salem tried to consolidate his power-base among the Invictus early on in the war, but within six months most of his fellow Invictus had either fled to Nathanael’s banner in Greensboro or came under the sway of Ponte, so Roan had to rely heavily on the Sanctified, his own contacts in the mortal world and, it is said, even stranger supernatural allies who sought to depose Nathanael. When the Sanctified declared the war to be an internal matter for the Invictus to settle, Roan was left with only Rebecca Reynolds, his own childe and Seneschal, providing direct support among the Kindred of the Triad. Still, his vast web of non-Kindred allies kept him a significant faction in the war. Prince Nathanael of Greensboro had more than a few successes early on in the war, gathering many of the Invictus to his banner (even if it was only occasionally, as with Ponte and those loyal to him in Winston-Salem). And, of course, Nathanael had his werewolf Sheriff, Huff, and Huff’s growing pack of beasts as well as his own extensive network of mortal allies in Greensboro and beyond. Without Morhauptin and the Dagons under his banner, however, Nathanael wasn’t considered to be the unstoppable force he once was. Indeed, though Huff remained technically loyal to Nathanael, he was often rumored to be off with his pack trying to find and kill Dragons in the Triad. Meanwhile, in Jamestown, Mister Parisi forbade the presence of any other supernaturals within his domain. Though few tested his ability to enforce that declaration, those neonates that are rumored to have tried disappeared into the night without a trace. As in any war, some tried to profit from the conflict while others withdrew entirely from the conflict, despite the protestations of Princes, Prisci and Covenant leaders. A sizeable faction in the Lancea Sanctum doubted the Bishop’s hatred of Lilura as a personal vendetta. Some among the Sanctified even went so far as to suggest that Lilura fit the ideal of a ‘monster’ much, much more than Bishop Forrester himself did and refused to support him against his ancient enemy. The other Covenants experienced similar, if smaller-scale schisms as some few of the members of each declined to involve themselves in the complex and dangerous war that raged in the darkness of the Triad. With the Invictus split into a three-way conflict, many of their business interests in the Triad waned during the first decade of the 21st century. Wachovia Bank and Trust, long the Invictus’ own personal vault in Winston-Salem, was purchased first by Charlotte-based First Union in 2001 and then that merged business was purchased by California-based Wells Fargo in 2009. Swaths of western Greensboro under Sanctified control were razed to start construction on the BB&T Ballpark in 2007, it is said as punishment from either Roan or Ponte for withdrawing their support from the Invictus. By 2010, the Requiems of many Kindred had come to a bloody or fiery end, though the seven elders still continued to pull the strings of their allies. In January of 2010, however, the first of the elders met their end as an entire Covenant was all but wiped out from the Triad. As the Carthians were holding a meeting in what they thought to be a secure location in southern High Point, the Guilford County Sheriff’s office suddenly descended on the warehouse they were meeting in, with support from the ATF. In the ensuing conflict, a fire broke out in the warehouse, trapping those within. Six Carthians, including Elizabeth Dane, Prefect Sebastiaan van Braam and Catherine Hugh, the Carthian Gangrel Priscus, were believed to meet their final death in the blaze. In one fell swoop, Carthian power in the Triad was all but destroyed. The only Carthians to survive were those who hadn’t participated directly in the conflict and, instead, focused on the Covenant’s mortal concerns in the region. By summer, another ancient resident of the Triad would see the end of his Requiem. Few know precisely what happened the evening of June 12th as a storm raged across the Triad, but it is believed that Huff and his pack finally cornered Morhauptin himself in western Greensboro, chasing him into an oil tank farm on Gallimore Dairy Road. It may be that Morhauptin chose to make his final stand there or Huff’s pack finally caught him there. Though it remains unknown precisely what happened, one of the tanks exploded in the midst of the conflict. Though blamed on a lightning strike to the mortal population of the Triad, investigators loyal to Nathanael were able to recover the charred bodies Huff and his entire pack, along with Morhauptin’s own burnt cane. Whatever happened that evening, Nathanael’s werewolf enforcers and Morhauptin were never seen again. To this day, the oil tank that burned has not been rebuilt. By the end of 2010, support for Bishop Forrester had waned so much among the Sanctified that only he and his childer were still searching for Lilura. Unfortunately for Forrester, Lilura found him first. Both Forrester and his childe, Danielle Kerper, were staked by mortal cultists and taken to a remote glade deep within Uwharrie National Forest, south of the Triad. Reports suggest that Lilura had intended to use the staked bodies of her enemies as part of some ritual, but Bishop Forrester somehow awoke at the climax of the ritual, stake still firmly in his chest, and grabbed the Crone’s throat, crushing it and disrupting the ritual. According to the one mortal cultist who survived, the ground then twisted open beneath them and all three Kindred fell into its open maw, Forrester and Lilura grasping and tearing at one another in a final death embrace. The ground closed up and the two ancient enemies were gone. The one cultist that survived was interrogated first by Prince Nathanael and, after being stolen from Greensboro, by Roan himself… the shattered and mindless husk left behind was shipped to somewhere in Raleigh to be institutionalized. As the second decade of the twenty-first century dawned, the War of the Triad had indeed finally become a three-way conflict within the Invictus. While Ponte expanded his own base into the power-vacuum in High Point, Prince Roan began embracing his own army of neonates to support him against his enemies and Nathanael struggled to maintain support even among the Invictus of Greensboro. The three would-be Princes continued to fight a shadowy-guerilla war against one another, the tattered remains of the other Covenants having either fled the Triad entirely or become isolationists, unwilling to risk throwing their support behind an Invictus Prince that might potentially lose. The vacuum left behind by so many Kindred deaths in the Triad enticed other Kindred to slowly slip into the three Praxises. These new arrivals didn’t have a dog in the proverbial race and, though they certainly paid lip service to the Three Princes, their interests lay well beyond becoming foot soldiers in a three-way battle to the death. Many urged their respective Princes to find a peaceful way to co-exist, though few held out hope that the hatred was anything but permanent. Few could have known that as the sun rose over the three cities on January 8th, 2013, one Prince would lay down to recover from his wounds and the ashes of two Princes would intermingle in the winds across a newly-unified Triad Praxis. Category:Setting Category:History